Deeplinks Blog posts about Mandatory Data Retention

Update: As predicted, DRIP has already become law: it received royal assent on Thursday July 17, 2014.

The UK government is currently forcing through Parliament a wide-ranging set of changes to that country's digital surveillance and data retention law. The pace of the progression of the new amendments, called the Digital Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (or "DRIP") has been astounding. Introduced without warning last Friday, if not opposed by peers in Britain's House of Lords, it looks like it may become law within the week.

Today the European Court of Justice declared the EU's Data Retention Directive invalid, declaring that the mass collection of Internet data in Europe entailed a "wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data." The Directive ordered European states to pass laws that obliged Internet intermediaries to log records on their users' activity, keep them for up to two years, and provide access to the police and security services. The ECJ joins the United Nations' Human Rights Committee which last month called upon the United States to refrain from imposing mandatory retention of data by third parties.

In 2013, we learned digital surveillance by the world’s governments knows no bounds. The NSA and other investigative agencies are capturing our phone calls, tracking our location, peering into our address books, and collecting our emails. They do this in secret, without adequate public oversight, and in violation of our human rights. We won’t stand for this anymore. On Tuesday February 11, the world is fighting back.

In anticipation of the first united, worldwide action against mass spying, we asked Katarzyna Szymielewicz, co-founder and President of the digital rights organization, Panoptykon Foundation, a signatory to the 13 Principles against mass surveillance, to let the world know how her team is fighting back.

Today is Data Privacy Day (also known as Data Protection Day), an international festival of our right to control our own personal information and to protect our communications from unchecked surveillance.

It's not been a great year for either belief. Since last year's celebration, the Snowden revelations have exposed how vulnerable private information is from unwarranted inspection by the surveillance state. At the same time, we've seen reports of incident after incident of major privacy breaches at the hands of criminals from large companies. Our personal data seems less secure than ever.

For the last few years, Australia’s security agencies have been pushing for the mandatory retention of the communications data of every citizen. If implemented, this policy would require private companies to keep communications metadata of all customers for two years. Essentially, it treats every person as a criminal suspect. Yesterday, a parliamentary committee issued a report declining to recommend data retention and strongly criticizing the government for failing to adequately explain and justify its proposal.